SHORPY 1005.preview

Toilet Toms Van

When I was 18 I worked at a fast food place called Hardees. For those not familiar, this is the same chain as Carls Jr. If you’re not familiar with either of those, it’s basically like a McDonalds or Burger King.

My normal days off were Sunday and Monday, but I had asked for Saturday off one week because I had a date. My manager let me off, and when I left work Friday night I waved and said “See you Tuesday!” on my way out the door.

Saturday night I go on my date and everything goes fine. When I get home my roommate tells me my manager called five times wanting to know why I wasn’t at work. The store was closed by that point so I decided I would just go in the next day (Sunday) and remind her that I had the day off.

Sunday afternoon I go to the store and ask to speak to the manager. She immediately starts reading me the riot act about not coming in to work and not calling to let them know I would be there. I let her get it all out of her system, then I pointed to the schedule on the wall right outside of her office and said “I wasn’t here because you told me a week ago I could have yesterday off.”

She looked at the schedule, looked back at me, and the light popped on. “That’s right,” she said, “I remember you saying see you Tuesday when you left Friday night. I’m sorry, it totally slipped my mind.”

I was fairly pissed off, but I decided that it wasn’t worth making a big deal about. I told her not to worry about it, and again said “See you Tuesday” as I left the store.

When I got to the restaurant on Tuesday I was told to go to the manager’s office immediately. When I walked in she started off by saying “Why weren’t you here yesterday?”

I gave her a blank look, then finally responded “Because it’s my day off.”

She responded “No, I changed the schedule Sunday, and since you had Saturday off I needed you to work yesterday. Why weren’t you here?”

I must have been looking at her like she had two heads at this point.

“What time did you change the schedule on Sunday? When I was here at two o’clock we looked at the schedule together, and I was still scheduled to be off yesterday.”

“I changed it around eight o’clock Sunday night.”

“So what you’re saying is that you changed my schedule on my day off, and scheduled me to work the next day, and expected me to somehow know you had done this without telling me about it?”

That’s when she went too far. “I’m your boss, not your mother. It’s your job to keep track of your schedule, I shouldn’t have to do that for you.”

I took off my hat and my apron and replied, “You know what, you don’t actually have to do anything for me. I’m done.” I handed her the hat and apron and walked out the door, didn’t look back.

Beef Brisket Burritos

beef brisket burritos
beef brisket burritos

Ingredients

  • 18 slices beef brisket
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil or butter
  • 6 (10 inch) flour tortillas
  • 1 cup Mexican cheese, grated
  • 1/2 onion, sliced
  • 1 jalapeño, deseeded and diced
  • 2 tomatoes, sliced
  • Cholula sauce
  • Lettuce, shredded

Instructions

  1. Warm the brisket slices.
  2. Put the oil or butter into a large skillet over medium-low heat. When oil is heated, or when butter is melted, quickly warm the flour tortillas on both sides.
  3. Place slices of brisket down the middle of the tortilla. Top with cheese, onion slices, some jalapeño, some tomato, Cholula sauce, and top with lettuce. Carefully roll the tortilla around the filling, tucking the ends to prevent any of the filling from falling out.

Yeehaww!

China sez no to buying US T-bills

main qimg 2f5303f9ee4bc77b6afa9333c5b44585
main qimg 2f5303f9ee4bc77b6afa9333c5b44585

In short the interest on US debt is $1.2 trillion and rising. Just the interest. Much of that debt is also OLD debt at lower yield and yields are rising fast.

outlook
outlook

Now of course somebody will say USD will NOT collapse it will still remain dominant etc.

But here’s the thing, it doesn’t need to collapse.

Western elections for instance. You do not need to convince ALL the voters of your position only the marginals. The 1–2% at the marginals can cause an entirely different party/government to be elected… hence, why political parties always target the marginals.

Small niggles become bigger problems very quickly.

This is a harsh truth

Anyone of them can fall

I remember in 2010 when people spoke of BlackBerry being a trillion dollar valued company by 2020

It had a market value of $ 50.7 Billion at its peak

It made smartphones and had a Global share of nearly 16%

Then suddenly Apple and Google surged ahead. The Touch Screen ended the Mini QWERTY Keyboard and today BlackBerry survives on IOT patents


That’s the problem with Tech companies

A New Direction in Technology can render then null and void in six months after decades of existence

Hewlett Packard was once valued at around $ 130 Billion at its peak but today it’s around $ 27–28 Billion

That’s because nobody in 2010 expected that your super fast internet could be available on your smartphone that would render a lot of Laptops as vestigial


So let’s see

Google

They have a lot of services. A whole lot of services. Yet are they monetized?

Google makes 80% or more of its Revenue from Advertising

The entire Google infrastructure seems to be entirely oriented towards micro advertising

They have YouTube, Google Search Engine, Chrome to help them build enough customers to generate a huge advertising income

Google has a near monopoly today as far as YT and Chrome and the Search Engine are concerned and thus so far it’s advertising revenue is safe

Chance of a Fall :- Bleak in the next 5 years. Google seems safe. Unless a rival comes up in the next five years at a evolved scale either in searching or browsing or video streaming

Amazon

Amazon has AWS but the near monopoly is absent.

Google, Microsoft, Huawei, Alibaba, Oracle all compete with Amazon AWS

AWS is where the big profits are

The E Commerce generates moolah but not profits

The E Commerce is just the source for Data like Google Search Engine or Chrome

Chance of Fall :- AWS has a low tech threshold and will lose share to Huawei and Alibaba especially in the emerging economies minus India

I see their value falling in 5 years and their market cap.

Unless they step up their technological edge

Meta

Meta is guaranteed to cease to exist unless they manage to get Metaverse rolling

How many people use Facebook anymore?

Instagram helps get a lot of advertising and revenue space but Instagram is slowly being phased out by TikTok and Douyin and Live Streaming apps

Chance of a Fall :- High in the next 5 years. Very high. I doubt Meta in its present version will exist beyond 2034

Apple

Apples bulk revenues come from its products like Iphone and Ipads and other products with Iphone earning almost 70% of Apples revenue

It’s profits come from its services like Icloud etc

It also has Valuable Proprietary software

Plus it’s own Chip architecture

However that also demonstrates Apples weakness

Everything is linked to that one IPhone

If the Iphone and it’s popularity tanks then Apple will have a steep fall

I am sure Iphone will tank in China and in many countries that would sell both Chinese Phones and Apple in the coming years

I don’t see any innovation by Apple and their advantage of a Smartphone with its own Ecosystem will soon be replicated by others

Once EVs become more popular, the next player is one who can integrate his EV Mobile platform to the Smartphone and handle processing for both

Apple ain’t that player

Chance of a fall :- 50% in the next 10 years. I doubt if the company will keep a $ 3 T valuation in a decade. It may fall to maybe $ 375-400 Billion in the next decade


So according to me

Meta > Apple > Amazon > Google

Highest chance of a fall is Meta

Lowest is Google

Again unless the Tech evolution climbs to a whole new level and suddenly Google loses its key market and competitive edge

Male Standards Are Frowned Upon

Michael Roberts

Michael Roberts has an interesting piece on China’s economy today. The disfunctional nature of western capitalism- so celebrated by the Ideologist/Economists- as it disappears up into its own orifice has reached the stage at which it pleads for help from the competition. The truth about the ‘market model’ is that it only works when it has evolved into a series of mutually reinforcing monopolies controlling the state and, through it, society. That’s what the capitalists call ‘freedom’- one chance in a million of becoming a dictator.

“The recent nonsense issued by the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on China’s ‘overcapacity’ and ‘unfair subsidies’ to its industries is particularly pathetic. As Renaud Bertrand put it: “the so-called threat of China’s industrial overcapacity” is a buzzword that actually means that China is simply too competitive, and by asking it to address this, what Yellen is truly asking of China is akin to a fellow sprinter asking Usain Bolt to run a less fast because he can’t keep up.”

“….(Renaud) Bertrand..: “despite the very low prices for its EVs or solar panels, Chinese companies involved still make a profit (industrial profits are rising at double digit growth), and they DO charge higher prices abroad than at home. The competitiveness of Chinese companies is overwhelming: today, in scores of industries – like solar or EVs – there is simply no way for American or European companies to compete with Chinese ones. This is the real issue: Yellen and Western leaders are afraid that if things keep going, China will simply eat everyone’s lunch.”

“China is the only country in the world that produces all categories of goods classified by the World Customs Organization (WCO). This gives it a key advantage when it comes to end prices: when you want to build something in China you can literally find the entire supply chain for it at home. Bertrand: “China has become an innovation powerhouse. In 2023 it filed roughly as many patents as the rest of the world combined and it’s now estimated to lead 37 out of the 44 critical technologies for the future. All this too has implications when it comes to the final prices of its products.”….

https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2024/04/10/chinas-unfair-overcapacity/

Posted by: bevin | Apr 10 2024 15:28 utc | 12

This Is How You Deal With Pronoun Warriors

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Jambo

On the plus side, Metallicman, you were born to guide the Domain and their Agents of Change through the mess of this Reality Universe, and will doubtless have an immortal role to play on the Other Side. The Disordered shall be recycled ad infinitum.
An old teacher of mine once said some people are born to families wherein they and their siblings remain best of friends for life– and many of those in fact need those relationships to even function in everyday reality. While others simply aren’t, and have different roles to play. More than capable of taking that Road Less Traveled along with its dangers. And that’s just the long and the short of it. Fated by Powers beyond our comprehension (well, until your “blog” and the Domain Commander came along, anyway.)
Some people really do get off on seeing others suffer, I put that down to them being poorly constructed NPCs, guided by bursts of chaotic emotion, or by what others and the man on the TV says… devoid of original thought or empathy.
Good fucking luck with that,
heh heh… as if life here wasn’t challenging enough as it is, eh?
And thanks for sharing your story. You actually drove a literal shit-box for a few months! Don’t look back in anger, because you certainly weren’t the only one. I was well into my 40s before I drove a decent motor, and that’s only because my wife kept hassling me that I was showing up her shiny Prius.

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